Volume Pot Question

[loquito5765]

I found this great diagram that shows how I need to do the wireing on my guitar, but what I was wondering, was on the volume pots, do all of the prongs into the pot do the same thing, or do certian things do certain things. Like do I always need the one all the way to the left to go to the ground? Thx in advance.

[GodBlessTexas]

Pots are just variable resistors. There are no differences between the volume and tone pots in a guitar, except for their application and possibly in their values. They might also be linear or audio taper pots, but that does not affect what they do, only the way in which they do it.

So, it depends upon what each pot is used for. With a volume pot you're bleeding off voltage to ground, which decreases overall signal to the amp and results in decreased volume. With a tone pot you're bleeding off treble frequencies to ground, so the wiring is different from a volume pot. You'll notice in your diagram that the tone pot uses different prongs than the volume pots. For a standard single volume setup, lug 3 is input and lug 2 is output, while lug 1 is ground. When using a pot for tone, lug 1 is wired to the positive lead from the switch (or from volume without a switch) and to the positive side of the output jack, while lug 2 is wired to ground (sometimes with a capacitor, which is very common now).

Check here and here at stewmac for more on volume pots and tone pots.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

[loquito5765]

Couldnt have asked for a better answer. Thank you, that helps ALOT.

[GodBlessTexas]

You're welcome.

GBT